Open discussion about developments in cultural property, heritage, and repatriation.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Looting antiquity for Arms?

A few years ago, during my second year of graduate school at
George Washington University, I attended a debate/workshop with Mesoamerican
archaeologist Michael Coe, along with other archaeologists and experts.I remember thinking “what could a graduate
student contribute to this discussion?”So I took out this very notebook that I am writing a draft of this
current post, and I wrote everything down.I am sure glad I did.I learned
so much that day, and I thought a lot that day.

Over the two days of the “debate” (a lecture one night
followed by a workshop the next day), we discussed the history of collecting Pre-Columbian
antiquities and more generally, the ethics of archaeologists publishing data
collected from looted artifacts.Does
the publication affect looting? Does the
publication bring value to looted objects, which in turn cause people to loot
objects to make a profit or for some other commodity?I believe so, and I welcome other thoughts on
these very questions.

So why bring up a workshop from a few years ago?I do so because I see a parallel with current
events in Syria, specifically the Syrian rebels looting sites in order to sell
antiquities for arms.Remember the
debate about arming Syrian rebels, during that debate the rebels needed to arm
themselves somehow and by any means possible.

The New York Times reported in September 2012 in an
article entitled “Syria’s Looted Past:
How Ancient Artifacts Are Being Traded for Guns” by Aryn Baker, that the civil
war in Syria is a treasure trove for the antiquities black market in Lebanon
just over the border.Baker reported
that “[f]ighters allied with the Free Syrian Army units battling the
regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad have told him that they are developing
an association of diggers dedicated to finding antiquities in order to fund the
revolution” (Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/09/12/syrias-looted-past-how-ancient-artifacts-are-being-traded-for-guns/#ixzz2YhDyBtJQ).

In that same article, a Lebanese
archaeologist, Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly, noted
that the Iraq war awakened a desire for Middle Eastern antiquities, and
collectors closely follow conflicts in the Middle East. Syria is a perfect
example.Bajjaly described the happenings
in Syria and other parts of the Middle East as cases of “contract looting”.

Looting spikes when central
governments collapse, we saw this with the looting of the Iraqi Museum, and in
Egypt as I described in earlier posts.As a result of the civil war in Syria and the collapse of a firm central
government and economy, people loot also to provide for food on the table
(although this is a story we hear all over the world and I don’t usually agree
with the poor farmer theory in looting, I do however think this is the case in times
of war).

I remember a statistic from my years of study that the illicit trade in
antiquities is the third largest illicit trade globally, behind the arms trade
and drug trade.These trades work in conjunction
with each other, so I am not at all shocked by the news that the rebels (Free Syrian army) loot
for arms.

So I stress my belief that the publication of looted
material can give these or like objects value.Obviously the Free Syrian army consider antiquities in Syria as valuable
commodities, and collectors find value in antiquities as well (why collect if
the objects Do not have some form of value, aesthetic or monetary?).A publication (documentaries included) lets
the whole world know how valuable an object is, so it is fair to assume that
people will treat antiquity as a resource.

In my thesis, I briefly analyzed how objects accrue value
and how nations try to possess property as a form of capital.I used the French theorist, Pierre Bourdieu’s
theory of capital to analyze antiquity as a commodity and why people would use
them, and I used the example of the Parthenon Marbles.Below is an excerpt from pages 13 to part of
16 of my thesis of that analysis:

As symbols of power, museums and source nations contest
cultural property claims. As mentioned briefly, the Aztecs venerated Olmec
artifacts (as well as those from Teotihuacan) because they symbolized a
glorious past, of which they claimed to be the legitimate heirs (Umberger
1987). Analyzing the theory of capital helps understand power, more importantly
who has power. Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1987, and 1993) offers a theory on
capital that can analyze power. Bourdieu dedicated much of his work to the
discussion of art, aesthetics, and value, as well as capital and power within
the field of cultural production (the consumption of cultural products).
Bourdieu (1977:74-75) divides “capital” into symbolic, cultural, and economic
capital. Cultural capital refers to the possession and control of material that
is symbolically prestigious and is the meaning a person can draw upon (Bourdieu
1977 and 1987). Symbolic capital refers to who has power to define and create
meaning, and economic capital refers to the amount of money a person (or
nation) has.

An object that is symbolically prestigious such as the
Parthenon Marbles held by the British Museum, gives the British Museum
cultural and symbolic capital because it possesses the marbles and can create
and draw meaning from them. Since their removal from the Parthenon in Athens in
1801 by Lord Elgin (Kersel 2004), the debate over whether or not the removal
was legal and ethical surrounds the marbles. The occupying government of Turkey
gave Lord Elgin a firman (permission) to dig around the Acropolis, but the
Greeks question the wording of the firman, and whether it meant Elgin could
remove pieces from the Parthenon (Kersel 2004; Greenfield 1996). The Parthenon
marbles also symbolize the power and aesthetic of the ancient Greeks and they
provide income for the museum because many tourist flock to the museum to view
the marbles. Bourdieu‟s (1977) analysis of capital can be used to explain why a
museum will fight to retain cultural property. Power comes from the ability to
assemble and circulate capital, and museums or nations that possess capital
such as cultural property, have power. The Parthenon Marbles serve as symbolic
capital because they represent Greek nationalism and pride, although Britain
also considers the marbles part of its national identity, but as Morag Kersel
(2004: 49) notes, the marbles are traded for economic capital to gain tourism
profit, and the request for their return might just be under the guise of
nationalism.

Objects also accrue value, which Bourdieu (1993)
describes in his chapter on the “Outline of a Sociological Theory of Art
Perception”. Art is symbolic goods, both a commodity and a symbolic object.
Thus, the Parthenon Marbles would have a monetary value on the art market and
the symbolic values described above. Compared to what Bourdieu calls
large-scale cultural production, such as newspapers and movies, rich
archaeological finds are a rarity in cultural production because archaeological
finds are a limited resource. The antiquities market is a restricted market
and, as Bourdieu argues, “the field of restricted production tends to develop
its own criteria for the evaluation of its products, thus achieving the truly
cultural recognition accorded by the peer group whose members are both
privileged clients and competitors” (1993:115).

Bourdieu‟s argument directly relates to the power and
prestige that collectors of antiquity gained as Mayo (2005) described. Cultural
property, because of its rarity compared to other forms of property, is a
symbol of prestige and power, which makes art a symbolic good.

Hopefully this post explained
some of my thoughts on antiquity and in particular the dangers looting (at
least briefly).Please let me know if
you believe that the publication of looted material adds value to objects and
in return promotes looting.